Chicken Coops for Sale in Coalmont, Colorado
Chicken Coops for Sale in Coalmont, Colorado
Eggs! Raise Your Own Hens In A Chicken Coop Built From Scrap
From a long line of egg farmers in Holland, Karin’s dad finally builds her a chicken coop
Where bylaws allow, or can be bypassed, I highly recommend building your own chicken coop. Imagine getting fresh, free-range organic eggs every day? When my parents came to visit me in Jaffa a few months ago, Dad found himself bored. Back in Holland, my family the Van Der Meers were one of the biggest egg producers in the country before the Depression. So you could say, eggs are in our genes. With Dad nothing to do for a few weeks, I brought up the idea of having him build me a chicken coop. That got him kind of excited. He foraged for wood in my backyard and came up with a coop that resembles a bus stop. The Chicken Express? Step right up and I’ll tell you how to build a coop in a few easy steps. And no you don’t have to invest much, unless you want to make your coop designer.
In warm climates very little is needed to keep your hens happy – basically a roof over their heads, a lengthwise pole for curling their toes around when they sleep at night (you might want to raise it high where feral cats might stalk your chickens), and some fencing to keep them from, well, flying the coop.
Here are our chickens before we bought them.
As it turns out, Bedouin chickens which we bought in the Negev Desert, are very agile creatures and even sleep in our blackberry tree some nights. The fencing doesn’t help them that much, but it does keep them contained somewhat, and out of the mouth of our crazy dog.
Here’s what you’ll need to build the coop:
- A corner on your roof, garden, or backyard for the chicken coop, a couple meters by a couple meters at least
- An old door or piece of plywood for a roof
- Some plywood for the sides
- Chicken wire, if you want to contain the chickens outside the coop (they eat weeds so consider letting them run loose)
- A wooden pole
- Some boxes, or crates for roosting. Throw in something soft.
- Feed
Find a corner to build against, saving yourself the need to build 2 extra walls. Be lazy. Make sure there’s a roof for the chickens to protect them against the sun, and rain, and in the winter if it gets cold, you can throw a carpet over the sides to keep the cold wind out. Make sure they have three walls.
We built a 2 meter or so pole, installed horizontally, down low about 50 cm off the ground but noticed some street cats were preying on our hens and raised the pole to about 1.5 meters off the ground. Most chickens can fly to this height but see what works for yours. It really doesn’t take much to make your chickens happy. But they do need a pole to sleep on at night.
What you feed your chickens:
- A basic seed/corn meal
- Compost – can include eggshells (ours really love labane cheese – could be because they are Bedouin hens)
- Garden weeds and greens (let them go wild!)
- Worms and bugs (they feed themselves while aerating the ground)
- Endless supply of water
Chickens do need basic feed, that which can be bought at a feedlot. Some inquiring around on where to find chickens and feed might be in order. Animal markets for livestock might be your best bet. Ask around in places like that. We bought a huge drum of feed consisting of corn meal and other seeds, and feed our chickens a regular diet of all the vegetable-based compost that would otherwise be composted. But don’t worry. Chicken doo makes an excellent compost too. One of my friends can’t eat eggs unless they are free-range and fed with organic oats. So it’s really up to you to decide how to feed your chickens, depending on your health needs and sensitivities.
We have five chickens and one rooster. The rooster is just for the fun of it. You don’t need one if you have neighbors nearby who will complain about the noise. And roosters DO make noise, waking us up as early as 1:30 am.
Bedouin women (crouching like crows) selling “bede” hens at the market
Unlike commercially-raised chickens, our hens don’t get “sunshine” 24 hours a day. Some parts of the year the chickens won’t lay. They will molt and take a break. And not every chicken will lay every day once she starts. We bought young chickens and it took them a couple of months to start laying. Now three of the five are laying, but like I said, not every day.
See a video interview with my dad about chickens
We bought our chickens at a Bedouin market (for about $10 each) because it was important for my husband that we have a “wild” variety – chickens that haven’t been genetically manipulated. Our eggs are on the small to medium size, the yolks absolutely huge compared to the white. One hen is laying eggs with the most delightful little beige specks on them.
Dad (left), the closest link to my family of egg people is determined that next time he comes to visit me in the Middle East he’ll be smuggling in white hen eggs – “the real good layers” – from Canada. He keeps asking me about building an incubator for these eggs to become hatchlings. Hopefully it will happen and when it does, I’ll report it here on Green Prophet.
Meanwhile, I am dreaming about how many eggs I will collect tomorrow. And how exciting it will be for my little baby daughter, when she gets bigger, to go out and collect them like I did when I was a little girl (that’s me in the top photo). My family had a coop in a suburban town outside Toronto until our evil neighbour complained and we had to get rid of it.
Before the complaints, I would go out and collect our eggs and sell them to our neighbors for a dollar a dozen, to cover the price of feed. Seriously, it was so much fun. If this blogger, and lazy environmentalist who is addicted to the computer can start a coop, you can too. Get cracking and join the new movement of urban farming.
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Chicken Coop Pinterest in Coalmont, Colorado
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Coalmont Colorado" into any one of the numerous search engines and a wealth of information will pop up. This information will provide links to other websites that will be informative and will provide the right direction for finding Coalmont Colorado chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Coalmont, Colorado With the big boost in poultry keeping there has actually been a just as huge rise in the array of chicken paraphernalia on sale. Poultry housing is a case in factor. It's additionally a traditional instance of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as numerous prospective poultry real estate experts pitch a selection of lodging declaring to be the excellent option to your chicken real estate demands. Commonly the cost looks appealing, the house looks attractive, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Definitely they know a professional chicken house when they see one? There are lots of economical and unpleasant coops swamping the market. I recognize this as I've examined a variety of them in the area, as well as seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed pail appeared. The result was only an expensive pile of firewood and a little group of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coops For Sale in Coalmont, Colorado
Typically these mass produced designs are built of rapid grown up hardwood - come the initial decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either blockading a doorway that will not shut, or ripping the door furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking occupants. The first warm day suggests the timber dries out and also cracks, the felt roofing bubbles as well as boils, and also come nightfall the hens refuse to go in. This is not due to their dissatisfaction at the decline of their once appealing property yet since the hovel is now a place for, and also possibly abounding, the chicken caretaker's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it said on the blurb that it would certainly match four large hens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and what are you entrusted? A number of joints and some kindling. A good coop for thee to four birds should cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this could depend on whether you choose for a totally free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are varying your birds in a big room as well as the pop hole door allows enough for the breed you keep, then the major needs of real estate come down to three points which will specify the number of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and also air flow. Many breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost at night, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off edges so the foot sits easily on it. The perch ought to be more than the nest box entry as chickens will certainly additionally naturally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they generate one of the most poo) leading to dirtied eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the floor of your home that leg injuries might occur when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens need about 20cm of perch each (in little types this is obviously much less), plus if greater than one perch is installed in your house they should be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally your house must have a least one nest box for each 3 birds and also these must be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your house. The house needs to have adequate ventilation: without it then condensation will certainly build up every evening, even in the coldest of weather. Realize, air flow deals with the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high gap drawing cooler air in from a lower void - it's not a set of holes on opposite walls of your home and also at the same degree, this is just what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run attached then the factors above are still true, yet you need to additionally take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum lawful stocking thickness for a cost-free range bird is (and let's encounter it, among the motivations for maintaining some hens in the house is perhaps boosted or much better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close check out several of the deal houses - it could well be your house has the right perches, correct air flow and also adequate nest boxes for a sensible number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the saying goes, "you get just what you pay for". You might assume you've got hold of a bargain, however you as well as your group might rue the day you did. Acquisition the right house as well as it will certainly last for a few decades, otherwise longer provided the correct therapy. Ultimately your poultry and also your chicken keeping encounter will certainly be much the better for it.plan chick
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